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Poems : medley and Palestina

De Forest, John William (1826-1906)

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MEDLEY
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UNDER THE COLORS.
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RECOLLECTIONS AND REVERIES
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TALES AND BALLADS
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PALESTINA

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3

MEDLEY

UNDER THE COLORS.

The Battalion.

A thousand strong we marched to battle;
The city roared around the host;
The tambours blared their vaunting rattle;
The bugles yelled their joyous boast.
No thought had we to die asunder,
Companions sworn, a brother throng;
We looked to sweep through battle's thunder
In mighty lines, a thousand strong.
But ah, the fever's poisoned arrow!
The jungle's breath! the summer's glow!
Our broad array grew swiftly narrow,
And scanty hundreds met the foe.
O fervid longings, thoughts and fancies
That tread the city of the soul,
How few of all your spirit-lances
Arrive where glory's trumpets roll!
4

The Combat.

Without a ripple stretched the plain;
For months we had not seen a hill;
The endless, hot savannah still
Fatigued the eye with waving cane.
A jungly forest lay before,
(The ambush of the wary foe);
In front, a stagnant sluice with low,
Reed-bordered, spongy, inky shore;
Along the right a mildewed swamp
Where alligators slept or crawled,
And pallid cypress-titans sprawled,
And mosses drooped their funeral pomp;
While leftward crept a dull lagoon,
As black as Charon's woful tide,
With plains beyond it blistering wide
Beneath the white-hot gleam of noon.
Gray, fitful spits of musketry
Announced our skirmishers at work;
We saw their darkling figures lurk
In thickets, firing from the knee.
Our cannon searched the distant wood
With humming, shrieking, cracking shell,
When suddenly the mouth of hell
Reclaimed its polyphemic food.
5

Menacing ghosts of whirling smoke
Arose a hundred yards ahead,
And deadly storms of hissing lead
From rifle-pit and canefield broke.
Then, while the bullets whistled shrill
And hidden batteries boomed and growled,
“Make ready! Aim!” the colonel howled;
“Battalion, forward! Fire at will!”
Right on against the foeman's wold,
With eager, gladsome, deafening fire
And whoops that keened each moment higher,
The dark-blue, living billow rolled.
The color-guard was at my side;
I heard the giant sergeant groan;
I heard the bullet crush the bone;
I might have touched him as he died.
I had no malice in my mind;
I only cried, “Close up! Guide right!”
My single purpose through the fight
Was quick advance with ranks aligned.
The foemen rose, then turned and fled;
A loosened, grey-clad multitude
Receded, vanished 'mid the wood,
And left us smiling o'er the dead.
Again the march, the endless plain,
The father-river hedged in dykes;
Gray cypresses, palmetto spikes,
Bayou and swamp and yellowing cane;
6

With rare plantations, richly spelled
In blooms, bananas, orange groves,
Where laugh the sauntering negro droves,
Reposing from the task of eld;
And, rarer, half-deserted towns,
Devoid of men, where women spit
Their helpless hate, and sidling flit
With writhing scowl and flouting gowns;
But everywhere, 'mid toils and scorns,
A noble sense of honor won,
A nobler sense of duty done,
A crown achieved, though sharp with thorns.

Campaigning.

I

The war was weary long.
How long and wearisome it was,
That strife 'twixt valiant right and valiant wrong,
'Twixt anarchy and crystallizing laws!
How weary, weary were the marches
In lands where noontide parches
The pulsing torrents of the veins!
How many steaming plains,
Now ashy waste,
Now thick with honeyed canes,
Our footfalls slowly paced
From glaring rim to rim,
While fever's vipers strayed
7

Through aching head and limb,
And gnawing hunger preyed
Till e'en that garish land grew dim!
The poison-sucking moons
Hung over black lagoons
And poured their venom through the hazy night;
The dawns were damp with blight,
And all the golden-quivered noons
Shot arrows glowing white
That struck full many down in mortal swoons.

II

Yea, long and fearful was the strife.
How many mighty champions,
How many evil Titans, bounded
From caves of Chaos and Affright
To spend their savage life
In wrestling with the shining ones
Who guard the fortress of the right!
How many cruel clarions sounded
More hortative and loud
Than Roland's trumpet when he bowed
To death in Roncesvale!
I heard all notes that wail
Through battle's vibrant scale.
I heard the dying when they sighed
Like wearied children pitiful and meek;
I heard the wounded when they cried
Their wild, astonished shriek,
The cry of one who feels his pulses fail
And all his strength turn weak
8

Because beneath him seems to slide
And open swiftly wide
A black and bottomless abyss.

III

I heard the bullet's hiss,
Incessant, sharp and fell,
The keenest, deadliest note
That bursts from battle's throat;
The piercing screech and jarring whirr
Of grape and canister;
And flying from afar, the shell
With changeful, throbbing, husky yell,
A demon tiger, leaping miles
To spread his iron claws
And tear the bleeding files;
While oft arose the charging cry
Of men who battled for a glorious cause
And died when it was beautiful to die.

IV

In long pursuits,
When every blistered footstep seemed to bleed,
When reeling ranks outwore the very brutes
And every furlong showed its dying steed,
How strange, with aching eyes to scan
The flying dust of cavalry,
(The horsemen of our van)
That up and down the roadways ran
Untiringly as billows of the sea,
Retreating and attacking, coming, going,
9

As wayward as a firefly's glowing,
While here and there
A sabre's glare
Revealed that Death was busy there.
Strange, too, again,
Athwart some scintillating plain,
To see advance through tremulous rays
The solemn, columned haze
Of mighty marchings, visible afar,
The dim afreets of war,
The gliding pillar-clouds of Death's simoom,
The tempest-demons, charged with doom,
That over war's Sahara swarm,
Menacing, monstrous, climbing skies
And hasting to descend in storm
Of crashing ranks and booming batteries.

V

In middle night,
In dewy silence, ocean-deep,
The hundred-pounder on the bastioned height
Awakened from its ponderous sleep
And poured with all its iron might
A lion-like, a grandly solemn roar
That boomed and shuddered on
From horizon to horizon
Until the lofty frame
Of darkness shook from roof to floor.
Then rose the bomb a-sky,
A lurid, crimson, bloody fiend of flame
That mounted swiftly while that awful cry
10

Along the rocking welkin fled.
It clomb, it soared, it curved its flight,
It paused one fearful moment overhead,
A meteor as red as hell;
Then burst in ruins deadly white,
In ghastly shatterings of livid light,
Magnificent, sublime and fell;
While, clanging like a Pandemonic bell,
The great explosion shuddered on
From horizon to horizon;
And once again the monstrous dome of night
Reeled outward from the roar
And shook from awful peak to boundless floor.

VI

Yea, fearful were the sights and sounds
That swept the war's wide bounds.
It seemed at times as though we trod
Another and most fearful world,
Unknown perchance to God,
Or else long since to ruin hurled.
Yet never did our spirit shrink;
We marched and fought with steady heart;
We marched to Hades' brink
Without a coward start.
Our cause was good,
Befitting manhood's noblest mood;
And it was noble, too, to brave
The great unknown beyond the grave.
All this was godlike, worthy all
That we had power to give,
11

Though in the giving we should fall
Sore wounded; yea, should cease to live.

Forward.

A soldier laid him down to die:
His wound was deep, his life a-failing:
He called a comrade charging by:
The shells were flying, balls a-hailing.
“O brother, take this purse of gold:”
The steeds were rushing, cannon leaping:
“And bear it to my mother old:”
His voice was shaken here with weeping.
“O brother,” said the comrade then:
The turf was red with blood a-streaming:
“Your errand fits but wounded men:
The bayonets came on a-gleaming.
“I came to fight, and not to fly:
I shall not live to see your mother:
So pray that I may bravely die,
And trust your treasure to another.”

The Storming Column.

Do you remember the storming column
That Banks sent up one night of June?
Do you recall the grandly solemn
Advance withouten star or moon?
The tangled wood and the boding cry
Of owls that jeered us on to die?
12

Afar in stifling night we heard
The picket rattle rise and fall;
Now and then the leaves were stirred
Above our heads by a random ball;
There were no clamored orders then,
The orders came from whispering men.
Our road by dark battalions ran,
By sections harnessed, man and steed;
We heard them croak, “There goes the van”;
And then we knew that we should lead
The battle; but our hearts would roam,
And many thought, “Adieu to home.”
The colonel groped before the files
Of bayonets bare and sabres drawn;
We roamed and stumbled dusky miles,
And night had paled to filmy dawn
When yellow earthworks loomed ahead
And howling battle called our dead.
Then officer and soldier yelled,
And wildly charged the old brigade;
The hoarse hurrahs one moment quelled
The rifle crash and cannonade;
I think the very caves of death
Reëchoed that heroic breath.
For the dying shouted as they died,
Cheering their panting comrades on;
And though the clanging bronze replied,
They heard it not, for they were gone;
13

And thus I think their final call
Entered the gates of Odin's hall.
We reached the trench; our foremost dead
Dotted the smoking mounds with blue;
The bastions flushed with clotting red,
And still the hissing bullets flew;
They hailed along the gullied banks
And thinned the wearied, broken ranks.
In vain supporting cannon roared,
In vain renewed battalions pressed;
The Southern flag triumphant soared,
We could not smoor the flaming crest;
We could not conquer—could but die.
Yet all the war was a victory.

The Bloody Grove.

The wood was strewn with gray and blue,
The smoke was coiled and looping,
When onward came the foe anew
With shrieking and with whooping.
The cannon tore the leafy aisles,
The beeches flew asunder
And tottered through the scanty files
In plunging, crackling thunder.
We knelt beside the fallen trees,
Beside our fallen brothers,—
We thought of others on their knees,
Of darlings and of mothers.
14

We glanced aloft and bade farewell
To earth, its joy and beauty;
Then made our every bullet tell
For honor and for duty.
The wood was strewn with dying men,
The turf was red and reeking,
When onward came the foe agen
With whooping and with shrieking.

Lost and Won.

I

The battle sprang through dingy dawn,
A stealthy battle shod with lawn.
It scared the morning with its leap,
A tiger battle slaying sleep.
One aster pierced the reddening east
And lit the monster to his feast.
From lofty heights that faced our camp
He crept on paws of velvet wiles
Down torrent gulches green and damp,
Up wooded slopes and gray defiles,
Till, stealing round our leftward wing,
He crouched and made his fearful spring.

II

My foot was on the stirrup plate,
My hand was on the saddle bow;
I leaped astride and spurred agate
Through tangled paths to spy the foe.
15

But vainly might I lean and gaze;
The lanskip showed no living shape.
I saw but woodlands draped in haze;
One foreland groping like a cape
Through pallid gulfs; beyond, a pall
Of tiding mists; and that was all.
But still afar I heard the yell
Of men who conquered, men who fell.

III

Then presently a phantom grove
Disparted wide its filmy aisles;
And through them, half discovered, drove
A drifting swarm of broken files,
Accoutred as they sprang from sleep;
Half vestured; herding close, like sheep
In terror; glancing back amazed,
And croaking low, as creatures dazed
By some incredible mischance,
A thrust of magic's fated lance.
In vain were rally calls. They stared
Unanswering, and ever fared
To rearward, stolidly as hosts
Of brutes, and helplessly as ghosts.
So disappeared our shattered van,
And so the daylong fight began,
While downward drave that lurid star
(Red Thor menacing from his car),
And slowly clomb in rosy lawn
The unavailing peace of dawn.
16

IV

Now silence fell—a moment's grace—
An anxious, fearful breathing space—
Like that between two evil dreams,
Two combing waves, two levin gleams,—
The while we swiftly altered form,
Battalions wheeling, swarm by swarm,
The ranks a-shake and intertwined,
The very chieftains groping blind
To meet the coming of a foe
Whose striking-place we could not know,—
A panther-footed foe whose claws
Crept daintily through morning's gauze.

V

Then battle's second billow broke,
With tongues of fire and spouting smoke,
With whirring grape and howling shell,
With yelping, piercing yell on yell.
The cannon-vapor folded high,
The spiteful bullet speeded by,
While back we drifted, ever back,
A bleeding, rifted, reeling wrack,
The field with mangled men bestrown,
With fallen steeds, guns overthrown,
And foul with sprinklings, trails and pools
Of blood, as 'twere a land of ghouls.
17

VI

Till noon the hurrying foe prevailed,
Nor any stroke of ours availed.
But then! O what a change there was!
He came! the Roland of our cause!
He came! we needed but his glance
To halt, to rally, and advance,
To strike as 'twere a dying blow,
And see the day all laureled go.
O monstrous joy, akin to madness!
O cruel joy, the victor's gladness!
His dearest comrade falls anear;
He rushes on without a tear.
He leaps along the roaring field
And laughs to see the foemen yield.
He faces death's demoniac jaws
And rends the air with gay hurrahs.
No other joy that earth may give,
No other moment man may live,
Outshines the radiant moment whiles
Red victory crowns the weary files.

The Battle Flag.

I beckon onward charging men,
I head the bleeding rally,
I flaunt along the rattling glen,
Along the booming valley.
I waver through the bloody sedge
That rims the black morasses;
18

I climb the mountain's smoky ledge
And rive the columned masses.
I span the river's icy flight,
I flout the squadroned horses,
I scale the rampart's steely height
And throb above the corses.
A dozen men have borne my staff,
And, clutching it, have perished;
But still along the war I laugh,
And still my rags are cherished.
I lead my children through the flame,
All marching in their places;
I cheer my darlings on to fame
And kiss their dying faces.
I muster scarce a hundred braves
Beneath my crimsoned glory.
O heroes, forward to your graves,
And plant my pike in story!

The Boy Soldier.

O my sunny
Boy, my beauty,
Mad to strike a blow!
Not for money,
Not for duty
Would I let thee go.
19

Spare the mother,
Growing hoary,
Not for long below;
Let another
Win the glory,
Rushing on the foe.
Ah, the ruddy
Soldier laddie,
Waking all aglow!
What a bloody
Slumber had he
Ere the sun was low!
Half a city,
Treading slowly,
Joined the funeral show.
Grant me pity,
Holy, holy
Comforter of woe!

After the War.

How few remember now the days,
The peddling days, before the war,
When life was like a one-horse chaise
And “thirty cents” a morning star,
When Bunker Hill “descended down”
If cotton planters deigned to frown!
20

We washed them clean, those scrolls of shame,
In seas of blood. We crossed them off
With powder stain and scorch of flame.
The kings no longer grin and scoff
At Freedom throned on hosts of slaves.
We balanced that with hosts of graves.
O comrades, render thanks to God
For Bull Run's day of panic terrors.
That overthrow was Yahveh's rod
To scourge afar the groveling errors
That trade is manhood's loftiest pride,
And man's most precious part, his hide.
Our fight was nobler for disaster,
No easy stroke were half so grand.
The nation's genius rose the vaster
Because of trial. Our spacious land
Gave narrow scope for such events
As trode its vast circumference.
Glorious braves those rebels were,
As gallant ranks as ever dashed
Up smoking steeps with bayonets bare,
While volleys whizzed and cannon crashed
Athwart the swarms of grey-clad men,—
The memory makes me drop the pen.
I think it might be fine to hear
Their whoop again,—their panther yell:
No trained hurrah, no classic cheer;
But savage yelps of wold and fell;
21

A cry of wolves in hunting bout;
And yet a stirring, martial shout.
At Gettysburg how swift they came,
Right-shoulder-shift, quick-step, guide right,
Defying all our roar and flame
With yell on yell as they clomb the height,
The fighting blood of a hero race
Ablaze in every swarthy face!
The future of a country reeled
When Longstreet crowned the deadly hill;
One more brigade had gained the field,
Perchance for centuries of ill;
And never yet were statues run
For worthier men than those who won.
 

Trumbull's McFingal.

The Echo Drummer.

The mellow drum of the echoes
Is beating beneath the crag,
And doubtless the elfin warriors
Are gathered round their flag.
I fancy I see them rally,
I fancy I see them form:—
Hurrah! 'tis the oldtime banner;
Once more, battalion, we storm.
Smoke eddies from ledge and thicket
Where skirmishers crawl and kneel;
From forest and winding valley,
Where flanking regiments wheel.
22

Along the base of the mountain
It streams like a line of spray;
Above, the battery-tempest
Drives billows of curling gray.
I hear the yell of the colonel,
The captain's hurrying call,
The tramp of the panting soldiers,
The ramrod's hammering fall;
The clang of the brass howitzer,
The iron gun's muffled growl,
The thrum of the whirling splinter,
The grapeshot's tigerish howl;
The stunning crash of the volleys,
The longdrawn fire of the files,
The bullet's incessant whistle—
Exultings of death for miles.
And louder than all, and grimmer,
The jubilant charging yell,
The scream of the old battalion
As it storms through battle's hell.
Again the grasses are reddened
With earth's most precious of dies;
The blood of heroes is flowing—
And tears are blinding my eyes.
I waken to hear but only
The summer's warble and hum,
And, stamping in mimic warfare,
An infant beating a drum.
23

Pickett's Charge.

The war had robbed the cradle,
The war had robbed the grave,
And boys with ringlets golden
Bore bayonet and glaive,
And grandsires flung their olden
Thin hair to battle's wave
When Pickett charged the folden
Pale mists where slaughters rave.
He trode the smitten valley,
The headland's hissing glade,
Right through the bullet tempest,
Right through the cannonade,
Till rank tore rank asunder
With bayonet and blade,
Till earth arose in wonder
To see the death he made.
Six thousand were his heroes,
Three thousand those who bled;
They marched without a shiver
To join the knightly dead;
They crossed the ghostly river
With swift and steady tread;
And fame will shine forever
Around that column's head.
The war had robbed the cradle,
The war had robbed the tomb,
And men whose hair was hoary
And youngsters in their bloom
24

Went shouting through the glory
That folds where cannon boom,
When Pickett stormed the gory
Sublimities of doom.

Raven Van Ross.

They say that the Vandals will come.
I would not believe it till now;
But this horrible throbbing and hum
Is the tramp of their march drawing near
And the roll of their barbarous drum.
So let me remember my vow,
And hasten forth, robed for my bier,
To strike at the joy of their cheer,
To strike and leave some one dumb.
My lineage is gentle and old,
And my heart is virginal pure;
My hair is a girl's flossy gold
And my hand is of satiny gloss;
But no heart can more proudly endure
The anguish of honor's red cross;
No hand with the pistol is truer,
And I'll shoot the first Yankee as sure
As my name is Raven Van Ross.
She speeded forth into the night
And spied the dark column anigh;
She stood there in delicate white,
A maiden too lovely to die;
25

Too precious for aught but the sight
Of love, and the kiss of his mouth,
And the clasp of his yearning delight;
But maddened by echoes of fight
And the passionate blood of the South.
She shot. But no death-cry replied.
The column sent backward no ball.
It trampled on, massive and wide,
From curbstone to curbstone across,
Dumb, solemn and black as a pall;
Unknowing that close by its side,
Withdrawn from life's hyssop and gall,
Heart-broken, death-stricken, lay all
That remained of Raven Van Ross.

An incident (somewhat disguised) of Sherman's entry into Columbia, South Carolina.


27

RECOLLECTIONS AND REVERIES

29

The Phantom Ship.

We stood on the haunted island,
We stood by the haunted bay;
The stars were all over the skyland,
But the moon had loitered away.
The lights of fisher-boats glimmered,
The beacon was steady and red,
The harbor icily shimmered
Like the bodeful eye of the dead.
Then came the terror of ocean,
The fiend of the island came,
A vessel with ghostlike motion,
A bark with canvass of flame.
It shone with vaporous brightness,
A glamour of tremulous rays;
It was not fire, but the whiteness
Of a ghost of a perished blaze.
We watched it with wondering vision,
We watched it doubting and dumb;
We had heard of the thing with derision,
But we surely beheld it come.
We saw it glide o'er the water,
A phantom of pallid fire;
30

We saw it tumble and totter
To ruin, and then flash higher.
Again and again to leeward,
Its ghastly rigging fell o'er;
At last, far away to seaward,
It foundered and rose no more.
We had watched it with straining vision,
We had watched it with eye and glass;
But gone were doubt and derision,
For surely we saw it pass.
Through many a winter and summer,
As the sons of the island know,
The gleam of this vampyre comer
Has prophesied storm and woe:
This ghost of a great three-master
That went in the days of yore
To fell and fiery disaster
Right off the Block Island shore.

The City of Souls.

I traverse the humdrum station,
I enter the well-known street;
But a bedlamite incantation
Transfigures the crowds I meet.
Their bodily shapes have vanished
To pallid planets of gholes;
And the city of earth, astonished,
Beholds a people of souls.
31

Nor neighbor I see, nor brother,
Nor lover nor foe I ken:
And they know not one the other,
These phantom women and men.
For many once quaint and homely
Outglitter the saints themselves,
And many once tall and comely
Are dwarfish and weird as elves.
And many who chided revel
Discover the lurking beast;
And the leer of the doubting devil
Supplants the smile of the priest.
The worshipped and trusted maiden,
The friend of my bosom, come;
But the darling would ruin Aidenn,
The friend is a scowling gnome.
I scout them in fierce derision,
Responses of fiends blaspheme;
Then in anger I rend the vision
And trust in men as they seem.

The Owl.

All day he sits in his vitreous dome
On the mantel stand of the hotel hall,
And stares at naught like a scornful gnome,
Regardless of me, and thee, and all,
Though many pass him with gleesome feet,
And many whose hearts in agony beat.
32

Summoning bells on the under floor,
Hurrying steps on the creaking stair,
Sobbing farewells and a mellow roar
Of music and mirth in the evening air,
Burial trains from the floors above,
Shouts of anger and whispers of love,
Succeed and reply like the fateful mell
Of comings and goings and joys and woes
That rave through Life's titanic hotel
To the far Beyond no traveler knows,
Arriving unknown—departed, forgot;—
One leaving a name—another, a blot.
Yet nothing seemeth the owl to care,
A demon cruelly deaf and blind
To every passionate hope and despair
And gladness and grief of humankind,
Who never changes his stony gaze
While daylight glows or the gasbeaks blaze.
A whitefaced clock in a varnished case,
(A corpse a-stare through a coffin slide)
Tolls the knell of the minutes that chase
Each other to death over eventide.
One! two! three! cries the sexton clock,
And the owl awakes at the magian shock.
He flutters down from his mossy bough;
His eyes are awful with weird surmise;
He cleaves the crystal, I know not how,
And rambles forth on a strange emprise,
33

Silently treading the carpeted floors
Where sentinel boots guard bedroom doors.
From every keyhole a wraith appears
And tells the soul of the sleeper within,
His secretest longings and plots and fears,
His holiest worth and foulest sin.
The grim fowl harkens with eyes of flame.
No marvel! Who would not harken the same?
At morn he returns, a bewildered bird,
And sits all day in staring amaze,
Thinking unwinking of what he has heard
Of the spirit world and its hidden ways,
Musing entranced till the western sun
Leaves him more puzzled than when he begun.
O, the human heart! O, the human soul!
Enigma of being! conundrum of time!
Go guess me my riddle! The centuries toll
Over guesser and guess their contemptuous chime.
I weary of bowing to college and cowl.
The oracles lie. I shall wait for the owl.

The Tableau Vivant.

She came in the diademed guise
Of Egypt's bewildering queen;
Apparel of aureate dyes
Lent orient pomp to her mien;
The stars in the heavens of her eyes
Cast magian glamor and sheen.
34

The smile of astonishment told
How plainly our homage was shown;
The Phidian face glimmered cold,
The face of a goddess in stone;
More regal with beauty than gold,
She needed no sceptre nor throne.
One moment I lived in the past,
Beside her pavilion I bowed,
Or ran to the templed Nile fast
To cheer where her galleon ploughed,
And prayed for the vision to last,
On my knees in a worshipping crowd.
And, maddened, I shouted that well
Might Roman with African strive
And stumble ensanguined to hell,
Yet cease not to grapple and rive
For a queen whose face was a spell,
For the fairest of women alive.

Romances.

I would I were mighty, victorious,
A monarch of steel and of gold;
I would I were one of the glorious
Divinities hallowed of old,
A god of Olympian fashion
Who mingled with women and men,
A deity human in passion,
Transhuman in strength and in ken.
35

For then I could render the pleasure
I win from the sight of your face;
For then I could utter my treasure
Of homage and thanks for your grace;
I could dower, illumine and gladden,
Could rescue from peril and tears,
And my speech could vibrate and madden
With eloquence worthy your ears.
You meet me; your greeting is kindly;
One minute I marvel and gaze,
Idolatrous, worshipping blindly,
Yet mindful of decorous ways.
You pass; and the glory is ended,
Though lustre and taper may glow;
The goddess who made the night splendid
Has vanished; and darkly I go.
You know not how quickly you mounted
The throne in the depths of my eyes;
You care not how meekly I counted
Those moments for pearls of the skies;
Or, knowing it, all is forgotten
The instant I fade from your sight,
Consigned to the visions begotten
Of chaos and slumber and night.
But I, I remember your glances,
Your chariest gesture and word,
And out of them fashion romances
Man never yet uttered nor heard,
36

Romances too brilliant for mortals,
Too glad for a planet of dole,
Romances that open the portals
Of Eden and welcome my soul.

Hail, Augusta!

Undeserving to woo her, to win her,
I creep far below her and gaze
As up-gazes a vision-rapt sinner
To seraphim shining through haze.
Shall I grovel unworthy forever?
Ah no! I will fight for my heart.
Let me grapple some dizzy endeavor
And mount where she glitters apart.
Shall I seek the sun-fleeces of Jason
And scatter their gold at her feet?
To Atlantis, to Indica hasten
And carve the unknown for her seat?
Shall I foam to the Fortunate Islands,
Or claim Eden's blooms for us two?
O illusions of earthlands and skylands,
Inspire me to will and to do!
What Titans survive, what undying
Medusas, to challenge to fame?
What habergeoned destinies crying
Hortations to battle and flame?
What achievement, what knighthood remaineth
To one who is panting for worth?
Love repineth and wildly complaineth
That perils have vanished from earth.
37

I would drape her in purple befitting,
Enthrone her and give her a crown,
In the world-coliseum high-sitting,
To regally smile and look down;
Her illumining arms marble-folded,
A thousand keen stars in her eyes,
And the face that a demigod moulded
Uplifted for human surprise;
Around her the terror and glory,
The laurels and blood of the scene;
Eager visages, story on story,
All turning to her as their queen;
While, allotted to perish before her,
Unchanging in color and breath,
I clamor, “All hail! Thy adorer
Salutes thee, and hastens to death.”

The Archer's Plea.

You wouldn't shoot with me, Edith,
When the heavens were argent and blue;
And now that the showers are falling,
Edith Anerly, what will you do?
To linger at breakfast and dinner,
To trifle a novelette through,
To walk in the porches with Leila,
Will that be sufficient for you?
38

The evening will come with its music
And feet dropping gently as dew;
Perhaps with the murmurs and throbbings
Of a Douglas tender and true.
I hope it will all be delightful,
I trust there'll be nothing to rue,
Although I would gladly have had you
One hour with the target and yew.
The arrows that glint through the matches
Of life, do they all whistle true?
Are they missioned to centre the yellow,
Or even to edge on the blue?
I trust that the shafts of your drawing
Will fly as Maid Marian's flew
So truly and duly and nobly
You may not regret that you drew.
But I shall depart and not see it,
Leave here and leave earth before you;
Shall go unregretted, forgotten,
And apart as the Wandering Jew.
So remember, before I have vanished,
To do what alone you may do,
And give me one hour of Diana,
Lithe maid, lovely maid, of the yew.
39

The Skater.

Along the frozen lake she comes
In linking crescents light and fleet;
The ice-embowered undine hums
A welcome to her fairy feet.
I see the jaunty hat, the plume,
Flit bird-like in the frosty gale,
The cheeks alight with burning bloom,
The dark eyes beaming through the veil.
The eager breath parts coral lips,
The marble neck parts tossing curls,
The witching vesture sways and dips
As round she wheels in rapid whorls.
Men pause and smile to see her go;
They gaze, they smile in pleased surprise;
They ask her name; they long to show
Some silent friendship in their eyes.
She glances not; she passes on;
Her steely footfall quicker rings;
She guesses not the benison
That follows her on noiseless wings.
Smooth be her ways, secure her tread
Along the devious lines of life.
From grace to grace successive led,
A noble maiden, nobler wife!
So much I wish her while she strays
In sylphic dance from shore to shore,
Already fearful lest my gaze
May chance upon her nevermore.
40

The Solo.

I gaze on the painted windows,
The columns ashy and cold,
The frescoed saints in the arches,
The ceiling of azure and gold.
The organ thunders and shudders
Like a monster dying in pain;
The chorus has wailed its parting,
Lamenting, repenting in vain.
Then out of the gloom arises
An angel whose wings are furled
You lift your voice in the solo,
And I fly from a woful world.
I traverse ethereal oceans;
Above me are marvellous skies;
I win the islands of Glory
And the beaches of Paradise.
You guide me, I care not whither
So long as I hear you sing;
Grief dies and toil is forgotten;
Ah, life is a heavenly thing.
Then silence falls like a terror
That blanches the face of mirth;
The solo ends, and I waken
To toil and sorrow and earth.
41

The Haunted Lady.

You know not, lady, how often
A stranger follows your trace,
Or lies in wait for your coming
To win a sight of your face.
He wanders mute as a phantom
That haunts the populous street,
Yet may not murmur its burden
To those it chances to meet.
He longs, like the ghost, to utter
A sigh, a yearning, a word;
But spells forbid, and the secret
Is spoken in heart, unheard.
The message is naught but kindness,
A prayer that your life may be
As fair and pure as the beauty
He walks so often to see.

The Coming Goodbye.

The summer will come, with its music
Of birds, and its darting of plumes;
The summer will come with its sunshine,
And odors, and glory of blooms.
The wizard, the magical summer,
Will dizen the town with his smile,
And make it a city well worthy
To sparkle in Eden a while;
42

Will deck it with velvet of verdure,
With jewels of leaflet and flower,
With glamor of dawn and of sunset,
With shimmering glamor of shower.
But you will depart from the Eden
The moment its grace is complete;
Your eyes will be lost from the window,
Your smile will abandon the street.
The beaches will hail you; the ocean
Will anthem its welcome to you;
To you the glad billows will flutter
Their pennons of argent and blue;
While I, in the sun-beaten city,
Shall watch for your passing in vain,
And think of your lighthearted greetings,
And wish it were winter again.

Recollection.

I well remember the moment
When first I beheld your face:
A moment: it passed like lightning:
But, like it, it left a trace.
I sat in the hall of music,
And hundreds beside were there,
All vanished now in the bygone,
All phantoms faded in air.
43

One instant I saw the glances
Of blue, the braidings of gold;
Then swiftly that ghostly people
Around you, hiding you, rolled.
The others are all forgotten,
The music has left no tone,
I cannot recall the pageant,
I remember your face alone.

Separation.

Never to see her nor hear her,
To speak her name aloud never;
Yet hold her always the dearer,
Yet love her forever.
To sleep and dream I am near her,
To curse the daybeams that sever;
To hold her dearer and dearer,
To love her forever.
To see from day to day clearer
She blights both hope and endeavor;
Yet absolve her, bless her, revere her,
Yet love her forever.
Never to see her nor hear her,
To speak her name aloud never;
To hold her always the dearer,
To love her forever.

Imitated from the French of Sully-Prudhomme.


44

Cherished Illusions.

Again the wonder-story is told.
Is she who listens woman or vision?
I know the braidings of sunrise gold,
The tranquil gaze of azure elysian—
Such gold and azure as though the skies
Had rained their glory in braids and eyes.
Have all the cruel, malignant years
Been merely slumber, nightmare, illusion?
Has it only seemed that love was tears?
That hope was mockery, life confusion?
That those who purposed to walk together
Have walked apart through misery's weather?
Is it true that I am all I was
In days when joy partook of madness?
That I have broken destiny's laws
And torn from death a vanished gladness?
Yea, all the happiness long as life
I dreamed to win in dreaming her wife?
O let me believe the false to-day!
No boding glance! no cruel negation!
Believe with me, Blondine, and say,
The morrow brings no separation.
Endow me richly, O love! my treasure,
With all that dreams can coin of pleasure.
[OMITTED]
O fair illusions of long ago!
O why return in guise of a maiden?
45

Too many the broken hopes I know
Since Yahveh drave me forth from Aidenn;
Too many phantoms and winning guiles
Follow and mock with remembered smiles.

Sunset on Lebanon.

Robed in vermilion the sun sinks behind Cypriot mountains;
Daintily many-hued eve mantles with rainbows Libanus;
Darkles already Beyroot between its gardens and harbor;
Beyond, the Mediterranean stretches in quest of Atlantis.
Far is the sea, yet anigh; furlongs below me the surges
Hammer the beaches with foam; yet, faintly rises their clamor,
Softened to murmurings low—a scarcely audible sighing.
Various glitters the sea—calms intermixed with whitecaps;
Many the breezes that cross it—orient, northern and southern;
Barks with favoring gales, steering for opposite havens,
Driven by hectoring gods, or drawn by whimsical tritons.
Broad and benign is the sea, yet few are the keels that track it;
Less than a dozen I mark, though Sidon is near and Tyrus.
46

But argosies manned by ghosts swiftly arrive, uncountable,
Opulent navies of old flowing in endless procession;
Tyrian, Persian, Hellene, Roman and Arab and Tartar;
Galleys of crossletted knights, Godfrey and leonine Richard;
Frigates of gunpowder times reeling through vapor of battle.
Thus for a little I gaze, wrapped in a dream of the bygone,
Careless that glorious-eyed Lulu and Miriam, near me,
Prattle their Syrian views concerning supper and breakfast.

The Lottery Valentine.

By chance allotted as the mate
Of one you neither love nor know,
Who brings you neither joy nor woe,
What mockery is this of fate!
We play like children at a game,
We mime the deepest game of life,
We prattle words like love and wife
Whose fire should set the soul aflame.
No purpose hides beneath our vows,
No heartbeat storms athwart our mirth;
We hold our words as little worth
As bird-notes tinkling through the boughs.
47

We shoot an arrow in the dark,
Nor know if destiny will guide
The careless missile all aside,
Or drive it through a throbbing mark.
And yet the fragile jest may live,
A prophecy of something sure,
Of something bitter to endure,
Or sweet as Paradise can give.

Underneath.

The skater lightly laughs and glides,
Unknowing that, beneath the ice
Whereon he carves his fair device,
A stiffened corpse in silence slides.
It glareth upward at his play;
Its rigid, ashy fingers steal
Beneath his gaily flying heel;
It floats along and floats away.
He has not seen its horror pass;
His heart is blithe; the village hears
His distant laughter; he careers
In festive waltz athwart the glass.
We are the skaters, we who skim
The glare of life's enchanted flood,
And drive with gladness in the blood
A daring dance from brim to brim.
48

Our feet are swift, our faces burn,
Our hopes aspire like soaring birds;
The world takes courage from our words
And sees the golden time return.
But ever near us, silent, cold,
Are those who bounded from the bank
With eager hearts, like us, and sank
Because their feet were overbold.
They sank through breathing-holes of vice,
Through luring sheens of unbelief;
They know not their despair and grief;
Their hearts and minds are turned to ice.

The Wizard.

The pulse of sunlight, ocean, air and flame,
The pulse of rhythm along the cadenced line,
The pulse of music, Ponto's pulse and mine,
Are they diverse, O Wizard, or the same?
I heard the Wizard answer from the sky:
“The universe is but a phantom show;
I bid one shadow come, another go;
There is but one thing real; it is I.
“Their strength is but a little heat; their soul
Is but a little swiftness; they are waves
That only move to find their sudden graves,
That only seem to live because they roll.”
49

He said moreover, “Each to each I turn;
I interchange and play the game agen;
I crown the water-jellies kings of men;
I summon midges from the kingly urn.
“The same!” the Wizard said, “the very same!
The same in matter, rhythmus, heat and power!
I know not why the fleeting shapes I shower
Around my throne bear difference of name.”

Despondencies.

Where are the visions of my boyish nights?
And where the glowing hopes of yestermorn?
Have I done anything since I was born
But watch, with eyelids closed, unreal sights?
I sometimes think of labors gone before,
And say, “To-morrow morning I resume;
The treasured flask retains the old perfume.”—
Alas! the treasured flask retains no more.
Unless the sun of Austerlitz arise,
In vain the chieftain's head, the hero's heart;
Unless the tricksy wind of fortune start,
We cannot reach our Earthly Paradise.
An archer shot an arrow in the dark,
And laughed, “'Tis but an arrow thrown away.”
But when he sported forth at break of day
He found his brother lying white and stark.
50

A speck of dust has lost another speck,
And prays the Sund'ring Storm to soothe its woes;
The Storm drives on, and every moment blows
A thousand other tiny loves to wreck.
Each century some mighty soul displays
The all-explaining Fact which all admit;
But ere a hundred years his name is writ
Among the charlatans of bygone days.
“No hell!” the sage proclaimed: we danced with mirth.
Apollyon heard, and answered with a smile:
“You cannot do without me yet awhile,
Unless you hanker for a hell on earth.”

En Voyage.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Tears,
And sighed to see the spectres thronging through;
But they replied, “You are the captive, you!
We have been free as air these many years.”
I watched the billows beat the Adrian shore;
Each tossed exultingly, then ceased to be;
And one of them was you, and one was me:
But Ocean lived and thundered as before.
The Coliseum! There at Caesar's feet,
The gladiator bowed his pale farewell;
But pausing there, I mused of Heaven and Hell,
And worlds dismissed to triumph or defeat.
51

While in the Pantheon I knelt to pray,
With thoughts of Jove and Jesus much perplext,
A broken Hermes scoffed, “What credence next?”
And haloed saints lamented, “Who can say?”
To find the Truth, the Truth that cannot die,
I wandered darkling, wandered everywhere,
Until a statue through the Grecian air,
All beautiful, responded, “Here am I.”

New York Bay in 1624.

Skipper Cornelis Mey, hardy sea-rover of Holland,
Clutches with horny hand the galliot's squeaking tiller,
Whistling a viking's prayer to indolent elves of breezes,
Marking the shaking sails and the streaky foam of the currents;
Whiles, in the hollowing waist, sombre of visage and vesture,
Marvelling, stand the Walloons, dumb as if carven in marble,
Watching the oncoming point of a hazy, forested island,
Dotted with cabins of bark, where salvages scream and signal
Wild invitation—to what? barter? or cannibal battle?
Wandering, swarthy Walloons, born of pre-Aryan races,
52

Chased from Numidian plains to Europe in mythical aeons;
Hunters primeval beside the Tagus and Guadalquivir,
Threading the bald Pyrenees, the forests of Gaul and Arden;
Scattering Teuton and Kimber, yielding to Caesar and Clovis,
Torn by unwearying war, shared among chaffering princes,
Yet still existent, nor quite forgetful of name and glory;
Whither betide you at last? sons of the Belgae—my fathers—
Tracking the occident wave under the lion of Holland.
“Tumults and terrors we leave, flying from Spain the destroyer
Drunken with blood of the saints, thirsting for blood forever;
Battle-trod Europe we leave, seeking the shores of Atlantis,
Daring the grave-digging sea, the deadly breath of morasses,
Daring the puma and bear, the wolf and furtive Mohican;
Hoping, at least, to obtain peace from the warrings of nations,
Peace from the scaffold and stake; yea, freedom of word and worship.”
53

So answer the dark Walloons, pilgrims of numerous ages,
Hunted from land unto land by stress of following peoples.
 

So say Collignon and others, while Ripley and others say Armenian.

The Old-Time Village.

Evening descends on the village,
The dew has jeweled the blooms,
The hawks are wheeling and darting,
The beetles whir in the glooms.
Moonlight silvers the rapid,
The waterfall pours its drone,
The frogs hold revel in chorus,
The whippoorwill grieves alone.
A somnolent handful gathers
In the dusky schoolhouse for prayer;
Beneath the sharp nose of the pastor
Two candles gutter and flare.
A russet-faced deacon rises
To speak—if ever he can.
He halts and mumbles: no matter:
God hears the worthy wee man.
A ringleted maiden's treble
Bewitches the schoolboy's ear:—
Even yet, O dimpled soprano,
Your anthem exults, and I hear!
54

The village remains, and the river
Beams, and the roses blow;
But the longsince dead are the only
Abiders there I know.
The living pass me in silence,
Remembrance and welcome fail;
But the holy ones of the churchyard
Awaken to bid me, Hail!
55

TALES AND BALLADS

57

A Seaside Story.

I
The Mermaiden.

There were jubilant sails on the ocean
And skeleton wrecks on the land;
There were laughters of billows in motion
To dance and to die on the sand.
There were shadowy Thules of islands,
Where Edens of lovers might be;
There was sea to the faraway skylands,
Wild, futile heartbeating of sea.
There were sea-gods and nymphs in the waters
That burnished the beach with their spray;
All the beautiful sons and the daughters
Of ocean had gathered in play.
But the marvel of all, and the jewel,
Was a heart that had worshipped for years,
Which a mermaiden laughing and cruel
Had flung to a tempest of tears.
58

II
The Seaside Lake.

A lake beside the ocean's brim,
Where velvet lilies dream and swim,
And rushes nod beside the whisper
Of ripples shimmering faint and dim.
Anear, the yearning tempest cries;
It comes from Love's lost paradise;
It leaps against the barring beaches;
It foams in agony, writhes and dies.
In vain the surges sob and break;
They cannot reach the prisoned lake,
Nor rive the crystal of its ripples,
Nor kiss one silvery flower awake.
O love, our lives are shored apart,
And all the cyclones of my heart
Can never fling one throbbing billow
Among the refuges where thou art.

III
The Meeting.

Do you remember the night
Of crescented, astral glamor,
The beaches brindled with light,
The foam and the billowy clamor?
59

Do you remember the bliss
So stealthily sought and hidden?
The clasp, the pressure, the kiss,
That all the gods had forbidden?
Alas that a love for life
Must live and die without token!
That the dearest of words, “My wife”
Must be forever unspoken!
As Heaven is my witness, I
Had gladly cherished that woman
In face of the sea and the sky,
The earth and all that is human.
Years hence that evening will beam
Athwart life's ocean of sadness,
And I shall see it, and dream
That loving was naught but gladness.

IV
Remembrance.

I had thought to see her no more,
But I dwell in Thules of fancy,
And she haunteth their every shore
With her beautiful necromancy.
In the midnight's hiddenmost lair,
In the morning's vividest portal,
I discern her aslant on air,
Like a spirit who greets a mortal.
60

O the delicate, tender gleam
Of the carven Parian features,
Such as sculptors delight to dream
Of in marble for godlike creatures!
As I worship she seems to chase
All of sombreness from my story,
And around me infinite space
Overbrims one moment with glory.
But a moment! And then the spot
Is a cell for the broken-hearted,
And that portraiture, thus forgot,
Is another angel departed.

Tender and True.

I
The Stroll.

Do you remember the diadem
Of purple cliff where we stood together,
Beneath the canopied golden weather,
And saw the lanskip gleam like a gem?
Saw burnished river, meadow and vales,
The lustrous domes of emerald highland,
The topaz strand of the distant island,
The turquoise mere and the pearly sails?
The pageant flashed like a jeweled dream;
But your enchantment doubled the splendor;
You cast the glory, mighty and tender,
Of love on forest, meadow and stream.
61

Far into heaven I soared the while;
Frail as you seemed, you had seraph pinions;
You bore me to fanes in starry dominions;
You made me god with merely your smile.
You made me god, companioned with you—
Ashtar and Adon—sister and brother;
But not alike divine to each other;
I was the sham god; you were the true.
Do you remember—Alas, alas!
'Tis I, and I alone, who remember;
That hour, to you, is a perished ember,
A withered nosegay, an emptied glass.

II
A Hope.

A little hope!
It may not be true!
And the heavens above me seem to ope
Their curtains of blue;
And the angel ladders of sunlight slope
For me to mount and pass through.
The tale that I heard
Was only the chirp of a random bird,
A babble some ancient grimalkin purred,
The repetition of nobody's word,
A note that hazard or fantasy blew,
That the freaky pigmies of elfland drew
From harebell trumpets jeweled with dew.
62

Why should I mope,
I who have dared with heroes to cope,
Who barely yesterday ceased to gird
My loins for battle with treason's crew?
Why should I throb and reel and shiver
Like a reed in the river,
Because an airy inanity stirred,
Because an arrow from falsehood's quiver
Out of vacancy whirred,
Into nothingness flew
And is spent forever?
Now peace has come,
The air with promise of love is laden;
I will turn my back on the silenced drum
And seek the rest of my childhood's home,
There to worship once more and sue
Before the face of the fairest girl
God ever wrought in coral and pearl,
Or marble of Aidenn.

III
The Wedding.

I have fought and fallen. The strife was vain,
The maniac wrestle for unbelief—
Recoil of an idiot wild with pain—
A tortured idiot, mad for relief.
I have seen and believed. The tale stood well—
As strong as despair and sin and grief—
As true as—yes, that earth is a hell
Where only the damned and the devils dwell.
63

I lurked by the lattice and saw—not all—
But more and clearer than heart could bear.
A taunting splendor illumined the hall;
The music clamored with insolent blare.
I cowered and glared while the careless tread
Of passers jostled my dumb despair,
Not knowing they trampled a heart that bled,
Not knowing they stumbled against one dead.
The gibbering drunkard struck my cheek;
But what to me was a stranger's blow?
My friend had stabbed me; my soul was weak
And humble and unresenting with woe.
And she I worshipped had edged the blade,
And bidden me bare my breast. But no!
I cannot hate her; I was not made
To curse the altar where once I prayed.
They had craved my presence. A scented note
Arrived in bridal ribbons to plead—
Go! I would sooner have held my throat
To the cannibal's knife and bid him feed.
Go! I trampled the billet to earth
And swore to have done with the human breed—
To house myself by my blighted hearth
Till the burial mutes should bear me forth.
And yet I went—like a beggar crept
Through tainted alleys and reeled to the door;
Shaded my visage and wept—yes, wept!
To hear the viols their jubilee pour—
64

Quivered with rage when the rhythmic beat
Of dancers hollowly thrummed the floor,
And started away with tremulous feet
If a waltzer paused by the window seat.
At last I wandered, crouching and dumb,
Like a starving tiger, balked of his prey,
To my lonely dwelling, my childhood's home
(My cell henceforth to my dying day),
Divided from hers by a wooded dell,
And watched in frenzy her window ray
Until it vanished, and with it fell
The only glimmer that lighted my hell.

IV
The Grove.

The wooded ravine fills with night
Between her roof and mine,
But through its boughs I mark the light
Of her chamber window shine,
A dazing glimmer, ruby bright,
That turns my brain like wine.
A little grove, a hundred trees:
I know each oak and fir.
I wander there to hear the glees
Of the birds who sing of her,
To kiss the passing of the breeze
Whose plumes her curtain stir.
65

A little grove, but cruel strong,
It rules us like to slaves;
Between our lives its shadows throng
With the sweep of ocean's waves;
The power that sunders right from wrong
Pervades the leafy naves.
No might but his could break the spell
Who lords the demon sky.
How often would I thank him well,
If the beast would steal anigh
And lead me through that barring dell—
To win her?—No, to die.

V
The Sleep.

He had threaded the wood;
He had paused in its utmost verge,
The verge where her dwelling stood;
And there had laid him to brood
In tune to the night-wind's dirge,
To the wail of midnight's mournfulest mood.
And there he slept
When the morning threw
Its fragrant shadows athwart the dew
And dried the tears that the roses had wept.
The tender light of the infant morn,
The light of a day just born,
Awoke from its cradle and touched his brow;
A day that never knew him till now
66

Parted the branches and touched and kist
More gently than kisses the frosted flake,
As though it loved the moment it wist.
It touched, but might not awake;
Alas! nor evil nor good,
That slumber may shake.
He sleeps
In the midst of the mighty brood
Who inhabit the unknown caves
Beneath eternity's deeps,
Beneath the mere whose ripples are graves.
He knows the slumber that wakes not,
He has entered the rest that breaks not.
His eyes, while gazing upon her home,
Where footstep of his might never come,
Had drooped and closed forever.
They saw the Eden forbid to him;
They saw—and then their sight was dim.
The heavens darkened, earth fell dumb.
The clock that striketh, “Forever! Never!”
Rang out. He passed eternity's brim.
Gone was the thought of gladness departed,
Gone the sorrow that slew;
And there he lay, the brave loving-hearted,
Love's Douglas, tender and true.
67

VI
The Dead March.

The hoarse drum groans, the shrill fife greets,
The dead-march wails from hearth to tomb,
The ranked feet tramp through black-hung streets,
The swart steeds drag the bier's slow gloom.
The men he led still march with him,
They keep the step and speak no word;
Their brows are knit, their eyes are dim,
Their thoughts are grave, their hearts are stirred.
They mind how oft in war's fierce blaze
He cheered them where a fiend might quail,
How red his cheek, how blithe his gaze—
That gaze now quenched, that cheek now pale.
With slow, set tread they pass her by,
She gives one glance and drops one tear.
They know he died, they ask not why;
They mark her not, though she is near.
They hold that death is lord of all,
They hold that no man owns his breath,
They hold that each must have his ball,
That life is war, and war is death.
They halt; they fire the last sad shot
With calm, stern eyes and sure, strong hands;
Then quickly, lightly leave the spot
To jubilant bars of brazen bands.
68

The Same in the Ending.

Our eyes greet often and often,
Yet know each other no better,
Though sometimes hers seemed to soften
When sudden and near I met her.
And once I thought she grew paler
Because I approached too boldly.
What folly! No heartbeat would fail her,
Though I slept starkly and coldly.
No doubt 'twould waken her scorning
To know that such fancies cheer me;
To know that I rise each morning
From visions throning her near me;
To know that throbbing and humming
And dizziness stir my senses
When far off I see her coming
And hope for one of her glances.
What could she care for a stranger,
Grave, silent, passing in hurry,
Whose love would be but a danger,
Whose gaze perhaps is a worry?
Farewell! We part without meeting;
Yet the senseless word rings sadly.
Farewell! 'Tis my only greeting
To one I might have loved madly.
69

With tears it was felt and written;
Alas! it could not be spoken.
Years flitted; those hearts were smitten
By others; by others broken.
'Twas all the same in the ending;
'Twas only sobbing and sighing;
Their smiles were naught but pretending;
Their first true gladness was dying.
'Twas all the same in the sorrow
As though they had tower'd in sinning;
And if God's to-day had no morrow,
His smile were scarcely worth winning.

The Vestal.

All the day we are holden asunder
By destiny's infinite hands,
By society's carping and wonder;
By creeds and their stony commands,
By the chidings of dogma and virtue,
By maidenhood's blush in your face,
By my terror lest loving may hurt you,
By conscience and grace.
But at night, in the Eden of slumber,
All obstacles fade and depart;
Nor the planets nor man may encumber
My way to your side and your heart;
70

I believe that my longings have won you
To render my soul its desire;
I believe that my kisses fall on you
Like rose leaves of fire.
So we live till the moment of waking
Removes you and joy from my side;
Yes, the day in its envious breaking
Has stolen my virginal bride,
Who laid on my shoulder her tresses
And smiled when I called her my own;
It has borne her from vows and caresses,
And left me alone.

The Bishop of Thule.

The Lord Archbishop of Thule
(God grant him honor and ruth!)
Believed most truly and duly
In all that he held for truth.
As angels know in the skylands
High grace the bishop achieved;
He sailed to the Fairy Islands
And preached there what he believed.
He summoned the elfin legions
To leave their heathenish creed,
And told them of lofty regions
More lovely than fairy mead.
71

Far into the night he pleaded;
The moon went hearkening by,
And only the starlight beaded
The magical elfland sky.
“O brothers,” he cried, “great wonders
The truth of my words shall prove;
Belief can loosen the thunders
And cause the hills to remove.
“But thunders would sorely frighten,
And never a hill is here;
I'll pray that the stars which brighten
This welkin may disappear.”
His honest old hands he lifted,
And closed his honest old eyes,
And prayed till the daybeams drifted
In argosies through the skies.
Then yearning, hoping, confiding,
Upturning his grateful gaze,
He saw the galaxies hiding
Their glory in morning's haze.
Thereon the little brown people,
The trolls and fairies and elves,
Erected a chapel and steeple,
And prayed for wonders themselves.
And the bishop proclaimed in Thule,
“A miracle God hath wrought;”
And all that he said he truly
Believed in his inmost thought.
72

The Lost Hunter.

The mountains grow daily stranger,
The river windings betray;
And the ranger who laughed at danger
Has lost forever his way.
Full many a shore he trended,
Full many a desert crost,
Full many a crest ascended;
But Boone, the hunter, was lost.
At last, as the day fell dimmer,
He came to a peak of snow,
Revealing with ghostly glimmer
More countries than mortals know.
And there, on the topmost glisten,
The ranger saw phantoms three,
Each warning, “O pilgrim, listen!”
Each pleading, “O come with me!”
A seraph was one from glory,
And one was a darkling sprite,
And one was a chieftain of story
The hunter had slain in fight.
Three trails they showed him, divided
The one from the other far;
The first through firmaments glided
To ramparts bright as a star;
73

The second slanted through shadows
Beyond earth's somberest bounds;
The third sought emerald meadows—
The Beautiful Hunting Grounds.
Said Boone, “The skyland is brighter
Than sinner like me may scale,
And only a craven fighter
Belongs in the murky trail;
“So now to my ancient foeman
I proffer my troth and say:
Guide me, O bowman, where no man
Unearths the hatchet to slay.”

The Goat.

When Lucifer fled from Salem
He rode a reverend goat
Who talked like the beast of Baalam
And knew all magic by rote.
No steed had ever such motion,
Or strength, or terrible mien;
He vaulted mountain and ocean,
He frighted as soon as seen.
Wherever his footfalls dallied
They withered the blooms and grass;
The comets and stars went pallid
With horror to see him pass.
74

The witches welcomed his coming,
The dead arose from their graves,
The fiends fled hustling and humming
From Sheol's shadiest caves.
The goat got prouder and prouder,
He fancied this power his own;
Each minute he boasted louder,
And talked of himself alone.
“Dear Satan, the day is breaking
When earth will know me,” he said;
“The stars in the sky are quaking
Already to hear my tread.
“My force and knowledge of magic
Are surely beyond compare;
I long to do something tragic
And make the universe stare.
“I long to throw down a quarter,
Or so, of the heavenly host,
And trample the trash to mortar,
To show who governs the roast.
Just then the pilgrimage ended
Beside the portal of Hell;
In silence Satan descended,
Scarce nodding the goat farewell.
That moment his gifts departed—
Gab, sorcery, speed and pluck;
No longer Creation started
Whenever he reared to buck.
75

A Fable of Salem.

“Come quickly!” wept the dying Grace;
“Abide with me, my pastor!
Then might I finish well the race,
And mount and fly the faster;
Then might I suffer the Maker's face
And kiss the feet of the Master.”
But far away the forest rocked
With storms from curst dominions;
The witches skirred, the wizards flocked,
The air was thick with pinions;
And there the minister danced and mocked
With Satan's sootiest minions.
He mocked and danced in priestly black;
No warlock matched his leaping.
Apollyon clapped his portly back
And laughed almost to weeping;
And the parson skipped like a jumping-jack
To think his deacons were sleeping.
But high above the mongrel herd,
Above the maddened Endor,
The mighty, shining cohorts gird
A throne of awful splendor,
And a seraph sternly writes a word
No language of earth can render.
76

The Brave.

The river hastens and glistens.
(Has destiny's stream a shore?)
The weary voyager listens,
And hears the cataract's roar.
The foam is flashing and leaping,
But strongly he rows for life.
(Ah, who can think without weeping
Of many a hopeless strife?)
The banks are luscious and glowing
With flowers and flowery breath;
The vines their fruitage are showing
To him who wrestles with death.
The woodland carols and twitters
Bravuras from every limb;
The whole earth warbles and glitters
With gladness for all but him.
The paddles quiver—they shiver!
But nothing may shake a chief;
He yields his life to the river,
But conquers terror and grief.
His robe around him he gathers,
Defying his howling grave,
And chants the dirge of his fathers,
And dies the death of a brave.
77

So let me face the disaster
That ravens beneath my prow,
Affronting woe as a master
And plunging with changeless brow.

The Pilgrim.

Afar, above sorrow and peril,
He sees the Bright City unfold
Its walls of sardonyx and beryl,
Of chrysoprase, jacinth and gold,
Its galaxied turrets and portals,
Its glories that never grow dim,
While, crowning its splendor, immortals
Wave welcome, a welcome to him.
Below him, he watches the regions
Of death and the shadow of death;
He hears the oncoming of legions
Who threaten with flamings for breath;
Behind them Hell luridly lightens,
The smoke of its torment ascends;
But calmly his armor he tightens
And swiftly to battle descends.
Thus doeth the valiant pure-hearted,
The lofty, the leader of men;
Thus vanquished the noble departed
Whose trophies remain to our ken;
They blenched not for labor or sorrow;
They charged, though Avernus might glow.
Then so let me meet my to-morrow,
Though bucklered and cuirassed with woe.
78

The Demon's Story.

Now hearken! derided the devil
(Buffoon of the powers of air);
I wearied of tempting the evil,
I wearied of vexing despair;
I hardly arrived for the revel;
I flew, but the mourning was there.
Then cycle on cycle I waited
For one who was joyous and pure;
With mortals uncounted I mated,
Aye searching for happiness sure;
For innocence such as I hated,
To practice my torture or lure.
I found him, the raptured, the holy,
The man without trespass or tear;
His visage was loving and lowly,
His eyes beheld Paradise near;
But slowly his breathing fell; slowly
His riven heart reddened a spear.

The Dark Comrade.

Through days of enigma and sorrow
(From doubt and dejection unscreened),
Through vigils that dreaded the morrow
(Ah, never a star intervened!),
I walked with the friend of my bosom,
And that friend was a mournful fiend.
79

For years we were pilgrims united;
Oh, strange were those otherworld years!
We darkled like goblins affrighted,
We whispered of perils and tears;
Yes, terrible friend of my bosom,
Thou sharedst my anguish and fears.
Long since that companion departed;
I know not the wherefore nor when.
Henceforth I was humaner hearted,
And herded and labored with men;
Yet often, dark friend of my bosom,
I would change the Now for the Then.
Yea more! I would greet thee with gladness
And nevermore part from thy side;
Would follow thee, Shadow of madness,
Wherever thy moaning may guide;
Yea, follow thee, friend of my bosom,
Though seraphim beckon and chide.

Calenture.

She came; she was my father's child;
She bore my mother's guise.
She came; a cunning fiend beguiled;
They dazed each other's eyes.
The joy that on my bridal smiled
Fell swiftly from the skies.
I heard them parting in the night;
Three hear's together bled
If ever woman pitied wight,
80

I pitied him who plead;
If ever maid won crown of light,
She won it well who fled.
But since, a darkness covers all,
The sun no more will shine;
Dim phantoms flit along the wall,
Low incantations whine;
Unearthly creatures weave a pall,
And whisper it is mine.

The Plaything Sky.

Where do the children fly
When they are dreaming?
Straight to the Plaything Sky,
Soaring and beaming.
Over the Wonder Sea
Sparkle the darlings,
Clapping their hands with glee,
Singing like starlings.
Wonderful lands appear,
Wonderful cities;
Wonderful talk they hear,
Wonderful ditties.
Squirrels come out to them,
Butterflies sing to them,
Guinea-pigs shout to them,
Tulip-bells ring to them.
81

Hosts of tin soldier men
Wave their tin banners,
Candy-wigged aldermen
Make their wigged manners.
Gingerbread gentles whack
Gingerbread ponies;
Sugarstick ladies smack
Sugarstick cronies.
Sitting in royal state,
Counting her tea things,
Giggles the little-great
Queen of the playthings.
Manikin troopers stand
Round her wee palace;
Manikin maidens hand
Cream-pot and chalice.
Wooden horns clamor out,
“Children are coming”;
Wooden drums hammer out
Welcome becoming.
Down trips her majesty,
Smiling and kissing;
Roundabout busses she,
Not a child missing.
Then to her regal hall
Kindly she leads them;
Gives them her playthings all,
Aprons and feeds them.
82

Gaily the children play,
Chatter and simper;
Then, of a sudden, they
Wake up and whimper.
Where is the Plaything Queen?
Where are her treasures?
Gone to the Neverseen—
Gone, like earth's pleasures.

The Fastidious Goblin.

There was an imp of Endor,
Eternities gone by,
Who saw the Lord of Splendor
Create his starry sky.
He saw the great suns stealing
From nothing and from night,
The worlds begin their wheeling,
The comets take their flight.
The mighty, mingled forces
Suffused creation's frame;
Along the astral courses
Throbbed motion, heat and flame.
The galaxies went singing
Adown their wondrous ways;
The universe was ringing
With gladness and with praise.
83

Then boasted Master Goblin
He too would make a sphere,
And straight began his cobbling,
And wrought perchance a year.
But nothing could he fashion;
No world for him might be:
He lacked the godlike passion;
Creative love lacked he.
His work had neither motion,
Nor light, nor form, nor grace—
A wreck on being's ocean,
A blur on glory's face.
So, seeing that no creature
Of his might thread the skies,
He throned himself as teacher,
And dared to criticise.
He called the comets crazy,
The systems badly massed;
The Milky Way was hazy,
The suns were overcast.
The plan was accidental,
The start foretold the close,
The tone was sentimental,
The scenes lacked Greek repose.
In nature all was lacking,
And lacking too in art;
A little wholesome hacking
Would better every part.
84

The motives should be fewer,
The aim more pure and high;
And any good reviewer
Could make a better sky.
Or, if he praised, 'twas only
The dimmest of the host;
The great orbs shining lonely
Were those he flouted most.
And, ever since, his mission
Has been to blame and sneer,
Consigning to perdition
The lights God holdeth dear;
The first, the greatest critic,
The model of his kind,
The goblin analytic
Who hates creative mind.

The Old Knight and the Damozel.

I

I think these limbs are strong again,
These scanty locks are newly brown;
In thought I mount my steed amain
And ride afar for her renown.
In dusty lists, where trumpets blare,
I quell the dourest knights that live,
And crown her queen of beauty there,
And kiss the glove she bends to give.
85

I sail afar 'neath orient stars,
Climb terraced slopes of Palestine,
Shout Agnes through the helmet bars,
And break the Paynim's turbaned line.
I carry slaughter through the tents,
I stain with blood the Kedron's tide;
I mount the holy battlements,
And aye for her I strike and ride.
Thou fair and noble Damozel,
Thy name shall be my battle-cry
In joust and storm and charging mell,
Wherever knight may do or die.

II

He summoned archer, squire and steed,
He pledged anew his lordly wealth;
Then raised a golden cup of mead,
And, ere he mounted, drank her health.
Alas, O loving heart and pure!
The light is fading from his eyes;
And sighing, “Agnes, reine d'Amour!”
He drinks to her, but drinking dies.
And where was she?—In castle hall
She danced to pipe and dulcimer;
She knew not anything at all
Of him who dying drank to her.
86

III
In the Golden City.

The Old Knight:
O Lord, thou knowest what befell
That latest love thou grantedst me
While I was living. Was it well
To quench it as it 'gan to be?

The Lord:
'Twas well. No rosebud damozel
Can bloom aright on blighted tree;
And time it was for thee to see
The mansions where my good knights dwell.

The Old Knight:
I thank thee, Lord, I worship Thee;
Thy grace is more than tongue can tell.
But, one last favor, Lord! will she,
My love, betide to Heaven or Hell?

Chorus:
He loved a rosebud maiden,
The knight of silver hair;
And never a saint in Aidenn
Will seem to him so fair;
And, be it in Hell or Aidenn,
He hopes to find her there.

87

The Vanished Castle.

I tread the site of the castle
Where dwelt my fathers of yore;
The castle, the lords and the ladies
Have vanished forevermore.
Yet the magian hour refashions
Moat, portcullis and hall,
Where phantoms grovel in donjon,
Or revel in blazoned wall;
Where, clutching a dizzy turret,
A damozel kneels to pray,
Her wet eyes chasing a rider,
In armor, glinting away.
Hubert and Hugh and Walter,
Agnes, Matilde, Isabeau,
They see me, they beckon—but sudden
They are whirled to the long-ago.
The villagers, gathering round me,
My name and race demand;
Then ask with a stare of terror,
“Comest thou back for the land?”
The query commingles the ages:—
Who am I, friends, but he
Hubertus, the old crusader
Who fell by the Tyrian sea?
88

Niffer.

I delve in the temple of Niffer,
The town that Oannes planned
Ages ere Babylon lifted
Her towers in Nebo's land.
The levels of Accad and Shinar
Around me glimmer and steam;
And I swoon in the quivering slumber
Of fever; and madly I dream.
O copperhued spademen of Accad,
Why do you bellow for gold?
Backsheesh is the cry of the living;
And you went to Sheol of old.
A myriad moons before Nimrod
You tickled these plains with the hoe,
You walled and turreted Niffer,
You routed the Kings of the Bow.
But now you are dead as Merodach,
And I am as dead as you;
So let us shovel, O brothers,
To bury each other anew.
89

The Old-Time People.

I cruised with Sindbad the Sailor
When this old world was new;
We entered ship at Bassora
And down the Tigris flew.
We traversed the Gulf of Ormus,
Where chanting Peris roam,
And Mermen abide in cities
Beneath the whispering foam.
We coasted the shore of spices,
The incense-breathing capes;
And we reached the marvellous island
Where dwell the Manlike Apes.
But what those Eldermen told me
I never dared rehearse,
Lest mollah and mufti and softa
Should clench their fists and curse.

Lochinvar in the South.

Oh, young Lochinvar is around in the South!
He has plenty of muscle and plenty of mouth;
Through all the Tar Country his gun is the best,
And his knife is plumb ready inside of his vest.
He rides a grey courser of Messenger breed;
The turpentine forest resounds to his speed;
He minds not the painter's cantankerous squeals,
And the moccasins waggle in vain at his heels.
90

There's a castle of joyance on Wilmington Bay
Where lovers and ladies dance night into day;
Each gent at that shindig is valiant and tall,
And rifles by dozens stand loaded in hall.
But young Lochinvar romps up to the gate,
Unheeding of aught but of being too late;
He kicks the hounds outen, wades into the swim,
And scowls at those suitors, all scowling at him.
“I've nothing 'gainst you 'uns,” says young Lochinvar;
“Just hold up your flippers and stand as you are;
There's a lady I want here, a tailor-made dame,
And Imogen Bill is her idolized name.”
He pranced through the revel, he swarmed for that girl,
He gave her a cinch and he gave her a whirl.
She gurgled a gasp, but she couldn't gasp “No”;
And right down the middle they waltzed for the “do'.”
There was mounting in haste among Wilmington squires;
A mile in a minute they scored on their flyers;
They hummed over level and valley and hill,
But they found not a symptom of Imogen Bill.
Beside the French Broad, there's a palace of logs,
Surrounded by mashes and furnished with dogs,
Where Lochinvar sits on a catamount's hide,
And watches for rivals, and watches his bride.
91

With deerkiller ready and courser and whip,
He watches her constant for fear she may skip;
He watches Carliny from mountain to shore;
And Imogen needs all his watching, and more.

Judge Boodle.

A congressman Judge Boodle was,
A cunning chief in caucus,
Unversed in statesmanship and laws,
But able to out-talk us.
To Boodle came a lady fair,
In rich and radiant raiment,
Whose coaxing smile and lovelorn air
Betokened her a claimant.
“My name,” she sighed, “is Edith Jane
Van Tromp de Duval Bates, sir;
And I am of the noblest strain
In these United States, sir.
“My father's sires in days of old
Led armies forth to battle;
My mother's kin had stores of gold
And lands and countless cattle.
“But cruel Time brought dark reverse.
Alas! the sad confession!
A claim against Columbia's purse
Is now my sole possession.
92

“To battle rode George Washington
Upon my grandsire's courser,
And when the victory was won
The courser was no more, sir.
“That faithful steed had borne our race
In saddle, chaise and pillion;
My father never saw his face,
But called him worth a million.
“And now, my gracious friend, display
The skill you oft have shown us;
Bring in a noble claim, and pay
Your labors with a bonus.
“Nor will I promise pelf alone;
This heart—my courage falters—
A woman's grateful heart shall throne
Your image on its altars.”
John Boodle shed a manly tear
To see that lady's sorrow;
Then squeezed her hand, and said, “My dear,
I'll mount that horse to-morrow.
“I know my fellow congressmen
Will back a righteous measure;
And now, my Edith Jane,—or then,—
Be thou my life-long treasure.”
She chided not, nor drew aside,
But leaned her drooping tresses
Against his heaving heart, and sighed,
“I'll pay you in caresses.”
93

So Boodle every wire did pull,
Rolled logs with all creation,
And piped our glorious Capitol
To push his legislation.
Another tax! another loan!
The syndicates made honey;
The people drained out, groan by groan,
John Boodle's darling's money.
Then Edith Jane de Duval Bates
Invited to her wedding
The lobbyists of all the states
That paid her plate and bedding.
They came and bowed; the nuptial knot
Was tied; the time went cheery;
And not a knave or fool or sot
But envied John his deary.
Till midnight, revel swelled apace;
Till midnight, danced the lady.
But when the clock struck twelve, her face
Fell strangely weird and shady.
“Away! away!” she wildly cried.
“No need of wedding coaches!
One beast will carry groom and bride;
And swiftly he approaches.”
Then galloped creaking to the door
That steed of legislation
Who nobly died in days of yore
To rise and munch the nation.
94

John Boodle scarcely caught his breath,
And pallid turned all faces,
To see that grinning horse of death
Curvet and show his paces.
The lady clapped an iron grip
Upon the bridegroom, saying,
“Away! begin your wedding trip!
The crisis grants no staying.”
Oh, gladly had the Judge delayed
Another hour! till supper!
She mounted, beckoned; he obeyed,
And scrambled to the crupper.
One arm around his wife he threw,
Much longing for a saddle;
And then away, away, they flew
As fast as Hell could straddle.
The bridal feasters howled with fright,
The bridegroom bellowed louder;
But naught availed; adown the night
He darted, quick as powder.
He clutched his frightful charger's bones
To save himself from falling,
And rode with many twists and groans,
For fearful was the mauling.
Between the yellow ribs, the air
Sucked rawly with a whistle;
He looked behind, no tail was there
Except a point of gristle.
95

Grim riders joined them, fearful things,
Bent warlocks, withered witches,
Some scaling high on wilted wings,
Some shooting low on switches.
“Hurrah! hurrah!” the wizards bawled;
“Judge Boodle leads the rabble.”
“Push on! push on!” the witches squalled;
“What fun to see him scrabble!”
At last, afar, yet drawing nigh,
He spied that monstrous scorcher,
The lake of Eblis burning high,
The red abyss of torture.
He strove to coax, he strove to chide,
He clamored hoarse and hoarser;
But nothing recked his fearful bride,
And nothing checked his courser.
The steed became a shooting star,
The wife became a devil;
And on they sped, the swiftest far
Of all the hell-bound revel.
He reached the lake, and leaped, and lit,
A flashing, ashing ember!
No more in Washington may sit
And spout and steal our member.
96

The Cannibal Conquest.

The king of the Cannibal Islands
Decided to conquer some drylands;
So he marched over valleys and highlands
With twenty-four cannibal braves;
With two dozen man-eating knaves,
All hungry as so many graves,
He skirmished through earthlands and skylands,
Defiant of weather and waves.
He came to Atlantis the Holy
Whose burghers were lamblike and lowly,
Though growing a touch roly-poly
And languid in fasting and prayers.
They fasted while sleeping, like bears,
And prayed without leaving their chairs,
And walked in the narrow way slowly,
Much cumbered with Beelzebub's wares.
Then followed a wonderful battle;
Good lack, how the cannons did rattle!
The women, the children, the cattle
Took part in the desperate strife.
They carried the war to the knife;
With slaughter Atlantis was rife;
About it the muses will prattle
While Jupiter granteth them life.
The Cannibals came out the winners,
They made twenty-five hearty dinners,
They gobbled the saints and the sinners,
And put all Atlantis to sack.
97

They spared neither yellow nor black,
The hungriest, greediest pack
Of robbers and pickers and skinners
That ever sent region to rack.
Henceforth they were chiefs of the nation
And lived by relief legislation;
They served up a bill for collation
And fattened a law like a beast.
Their appetites daily increased;
A lunch was a patent, at least,
While railroads and steam-navigation
Scarce furnished the joints for a feast.
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